DATA WAREHOUSING FUNDAMENTALS: A Comprehensive Guide for IT Professionals

19.1. CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

• Study the role of the deployment phase in the data warehouse development life cycle

• Review the major deployment activities and learn how to get them done

• Examine the need for a pilot system and classify the types of pilots

• Consider data security in the data warehouse environment

• Survey the data backup and recovery requirements

You have now arrived at a point where you are ready to roll out the initial version of the data warehouse. Deployment is the next phase after construction. In the deployment phase, you attend to the last few details, turn the data warehouse on, and let the users reap the benefits. By the time you reach the deployment phase, the majority of the functions are completed. The main concerns in the deployment phase relate to the users getting the training, support, and the hardware and tools they need to get into the warehouse.

To find our place in the whole life cycle of data warehouse development, let us summarize the functions and operations that have been completed up to this point. Here is the list of major activities already completed in the construction phase:

• The infrastructure is in place with the components fully tested.

• The validity of the architecture is already verified.

• The database is defined. Space allocation for the various tables is completed.

• The staging area is fully set up with file allocations.

• The extract, transformation, and all other staging area jobs are tested.

• The creation of the load images is tested in the development ...